CHAPTER 8:
Della Robbia Pottery Marks
Fig. 219 A detailed drawing of the Della Robbia “ship” mark on the back cover of the 1900 Catalogue.
Fig. 220 A typical simple incised Della Robbia ship mark.
a. Factory marks
Fig. 218 Large plaque, with a version of the Della Robbia Pottery “ship” mark painted on the front. Incised mark “L” or “LL” possibly for J.L. Levy, painted mark “W” probably for William Warwick. C. 1895–96. 42.5cm. © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection.
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i “Ship” mark The Della Robbia Pottery used the same identifying mark throughout its existence: a simplified outline drawing of a sailing ship, in between the initials “D” and “R”. The degree of care with which this ship was drawn varied considerably, but the outline roughly resembles a Viking longship, with curved outline, a single mast and a square sail. This type of vessel at sea was a popular motif of the time among arts and crafts designers, appearing on, for example,William de Morgan tiles and Keswick School metal salvers. The Della Robbia Pottery adopted the ship as their own “logo”, possibly because of the Birkenhead maritime connections, and occasionally even used it as a principal design on the front of plates and plaques. A detailed version of the ship device also appeared on the back cover of the Della Robbia Catalogue of 1900. An outline of the Della Robbia ship mark was usually incised into the soft clay on the base or back of each piece before it was fired, but also appears in painted form. An artist who was applying sgraffito decoration to a pot was expected also to incise the ship mark. Some artists developed their own more imaginative version of the vessel, perhaps adding waves and seagulls, and even islands. Very occasionally, the ship mark was omitted, and also the initials “DR”. Such pieces can often attributed to Della Robbia on the basis of artist’s initials and their general style. On the moulded plaques produced by the Architectural Department the sailing ship mark was at first scratched out on the back with a date, but after 1900 a stamp came into use (fig. 224).This was the nearest the Della Robbia Pottery ever came to printing on its wares, and the ship used is the nearest to being the “authorised” version. The final digit of the year is sometimes indistinct, no doubt due to the practice of updating the same stamp each year rather than make a new one.
ii Pottery name; dates and numbers The name of the Pottery also appears quite often on the base of Della Robbia pieces, presumably because it was thought that the ship mark was insufficient identification.Thus the full name “Della Robbia Pottery Birkenhead” is found, or various elements of it, eg just “Della Robbia” or “Birkenhead”. The year of manufacture was marked on about 50% of the pieces made at Della Robbia, and there appears to have been no set rule about this. Inscribed numbers also appear: these, according to the Della Robbia artist Charles Collis, were “a record for the daily work book”. Such a book would have been part of factory administration and would presumably have recorded the time during which a numbered piece was worked on and the names of the employees who worked on it. Collis confirmed that he numbered his designs, and when he got near 1,000 he started numbering from one again. However, once again there appears to have been no set rule: Gertrude Russell admitted that the clay decorator “was supposed to put on a number, which he didn’t always do”. The “good from kiln” payment system used frequently in Staffordshire, under which workers were paid only in respect
Fig. 221 A more elaborate sgraffito ship by the artist Arthur E. Bells.
Fig. 222 A romanticised version of the ship mark by Harry Pearce.
Fig. 223 A stylised ship mark used by Charles Collis.
Fig. 224 Impressed mark often found on the back of panels.
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